Fostering a culture
of collaboration
Ben Balter
@benbalter
ben.balter.com
ben.balter@github.com
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Roadmap
• Open source (in the enterprise)
• Best practices (internal, external)
• Community building (internal, external)
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Open source
in the enterprise
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The open source maturity model
• Consuming - Using open source software
• Releasing - Creating a new open source project
• Contributing - Contributing to upstream projects
• Embracing - Strategically participating in open source
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Conway's law
“organizations which design systems ...
are constrained to produce designs
which are copies of the communication
structures of these organizations ”
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How you work
is as important as
What you work on
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How closed source projects can
work like open source projects
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Open source ≠ Published source
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Open source is a philosophy
Not a type of software
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Process is shared to the widest extent practical
One team — your organization — the entire world
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Open Source (software)
software that can be freely used, modified, and shared
(in both modified and unmodified form) by anyone
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Open Source
a philosophy of collaboration in which
working materials are made available for
others to fork, modify, discuss, and contribute to.
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Adopting open source
Code & process
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Friction (n) - the time it takes to go
from "I want to contribute" to "I have"
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Open source
best practices
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Inside the firewall
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1. The technology is the easy part
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2. Start small, go through the motions
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3. Minimize information imbalance
procedurally — day-to-day — long term
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4. Embrace the constraints of open source
Electronic — Available — Asynchronous — Informal
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5. Open source problems, not solutions
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Outside the firewall
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1. Expand your definition of stakeholders
(Potential) users — (Potential) contributors — Subject matter experts
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2. Be the hub, encourage spokes
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3. Minimize contributor friction
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4. Decentralize governance
Community management — Code review — Leadership
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5. Encourage contributions
In advance — day-to-day — going forward
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Open source
community building
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1. Make open source an
explicit expectation
Open source Fridays — Hack Weeks — upstream improvements
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2. Solve a shared problem
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3. Link to the repository from
your project’s distribution channel
Topics — Good first issues — Help wanted
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4. Add community documentation
Common license — CONTRIBUTING — Community Profile